Great job Ranbir, but sorry to tell you your dad wins this round, simply for the fact that he wore that great heart necklace. Old is gold. Which one do you prefer? Now here’s a bit about the movie:

The film follows the journey of Raj Sharma (Ranbir Kapoor) from the age of 18 to 30 and how he meets three girls at different stages of his life : Mahi (Minissha Lamba) – a small-town girl from Punjab, Radhika (Bipasha Basu) – a model from Mumbai and Gayatri (Deepika Padukone) – a NRI taxi driver and student from Australia. The film is about a boy who goes from one love affair to another, only to run into true love. (source)

Raj has had 2 girlfriends, Mahi and Radhika. He leaves them both without too much thought about their feelings and the consequences of his actions. Then he finally falls for a girl who can’t commit to him, the taxi driving, convenience store working, college attending Gayatri.

So now the shoe is on the other foot. (Is that also a saying in Hindi? The shoe is on the other foot?) Finally Raj understands how Mahi and Radhika must have felt when he wouldn’t commit to them. To make amends for his playboy living and redeem himself for true love, he goes back to apologize to the 2 women he’s hurt years earlier.

When he first met Mahi, Raj played into her romantic DDLJ inspired fantasies. Mahi overhears him talking crassly about her to his friends at the airport. She’d been tricked! She’s devistated and looses her trust in love.

Years later we return to Mahi’s home in the Punjab, and to place us in Amritsar, there’s a requisite shot of the Golden Temple. Her husband is the super hot Kunal Kapoor, I mean Joginder Ahluwalia. Joginder is a proud Sikh man, who loves his wife. Joginder is wealthy, and wears a Hermes scarf.

I must add that I was in Amritsar a few months back and saw nobody wearing a Hermes scarf, but I did see a guy wearing a shower cap covered in strawberries. I drove by him so fast, but I wanted to shout to him, “Yaar, did you ever see Strawberry Shortcake?” See the Strawberry Shortcake Sikh.

So Raj makes the trek to Amristar to apologize to Mahi, but encounters her husband first. Jogi has all the trappings of marriage from Mahi, but not her love, since Raj robbed her of her belief in romantic love years before. Joginder takes Raj out to the woods to so he can talk man to man, drink some Johnnie Walker (Black Label) and threaten him with a gun.

Raj finally gets his chance to apologize to Mahi who wears this smashing sari. I LOVED that sari!

The second woman Raj goes back to apologize to is Radhika (Bipasha Basu). They been shacking up in Mumbai are all set to get married. Radhika and her pals plan on meeting Raj for a civil shaadi ceremony…

He leaves her waiting on the stop of city hall in Mumbai, and she never gets that marriage license.

Then he goes to Australia, just to make it clear he’s really gone.

Fast forward several years and Raj now wants to apologize to Rahdika, who has now become a huge diva with a new naam: Shreya!

In order to gain forgiveness, Raj agrees to be Shreya/Rahdika’s personal assistant. For days she treats him horribly and attempts to humiliate him. Raj’s rejection fueled Rahdika to fame, yet she’s bitter and afraid to love.

At last she breaks down and forgives him, only after telling him how she felt when he left her years before.

As they say in India: Why buy the holy cow, if you can get the doud for free?

Let me know what you thought of the film, and as always my mitr, all the best!

Today was Valentine’s Day. I had some options. I could either get started on preparing my income taxes or go and see Billu Barber (2009). I went to Billu Barber. This was really a cute and sweet movie. It was also very romantic for me since I could channel my imagination to play Lara Dutta’s part in the film and thus be Irfan Khan’s wife, whose part requires her to admire Shahrukh Khan’s character. That’s a win/win situation for me. SRK’s character had item numbers with Deepika Padukone, Priyanka Chopra, and Kareena Kapoor. Khan and the gals all looked fantastic, but the costume department must have had to make some concessions for the weak economy and only allowed Kareena to wear a full outfit, and put poor Priyanka and Deepika in small strips of cloth, which made me feel cold just watching.

Shahrukh Khan’s ending speech was shamelessly sentimental and I enjoyed crying through it. I feel it’s only right to cry along with SRK while he’s crying. To weep along with SRK is polite really, and the least I could do to show some respect to him and the industry, and to my Mother India. This speech had the following essential Bollywood ingredients: maudlin reminiscing about better times from childhood, even though those times were sorrowful (dead mother), and hard (hunger brought about by poverty), they were made better through the help of a friend. SRK delivering a message that the masses need to hear in these trying economic times: When I was really poor, my life was actually really rich. Which reminds me, I have to get to those taxes. SRK’s speech in Billu reminded me very much the speech Amitabh gives in Muqaddar Ka Sikandarjust before the O Saathi Re tune. So this Valentine’s Day, dosto, I dedicate this nice song about friendship to you:

I always enjoy watching these FIRST DAY FIRST SHOW videos. Watch it and picture me added in there; I would be the gori who says in my best Indian accent, “SRK was rocking hai! Supurb! Vay! Irfan was acting so excellent!”

Here’s a better late than never update on Bollywood Insider, with my favorite correspondant of Bollywood chugli and news, Suzi Mann. Many of the links I’ve added here before from ITN/Bollywood Insider through youtube eventually disappear. Hopefully these newer links from AOL, Bebo, Joost, and MySpace will last.

Now for part II of my series of filmi related pictures from my trip to India. I mostly took pictures from some type of moving vehicle, so I didn’t always get the best shots, and often didn’t realize until reviewng the photos just what I had captured. Sometimes I found traces of Bollywood where I least expected. Raj Babbar (lower left) popped up on this political billboard in Agra. Would you vote for Raj?

Yesterday I posted about Abhishek selling cell phones all over India. Now look closely at this photo from Amritsar and see if you can tell who else is selling cell phones.

I was only snapping away at the lovely chaos of India and didn’t even realize I’d captured Shreyas Talpade here until I zoomed in. What a nice surprise. While riding the Shatabdi Express from Ludhiana to New Delhi, I snapped another picture, not knowing if was filmi until I took a closer look …

Once again it’s time to get the latest Bollywood chugli from Suzi Mann, Bollywood Food Club’s favorite entertainment correspondant. Suzi gives us the latest news hot off the press on all your favorite Bolly stars!

From June 6, 2008:

Emraan cashes in, Fresh start for Akshay

From June 13, 2008:

Get the latest on Bollywood’s biggest stars in a special feature on the 9th International Indian Film Academy Awards hosted in Thailand.